New Gaston County teacher reminds students they're 'not alone'

Saturday

Her Grier Middle School classroom reflects pieces of her life journey, and is meant to inspire children to embark on their own adventures.

There’s a brown leather couch which she calls the “book boat,” meant for her sixth grade English/language arts students to sail while enhancing their literacy skills.

There’s turquoise-colored furniture that she painted herself, and a circular rug hand-knit by her grandmother.

There’s a spinning globe which reminds her of the places she’s been with her parents and 11 siblings-- the countless mission trips overseas, and the multiple states where the family has lived for various amounts of time.

And there’s a painting of another globe that reads “Let’s make today an adventure kind of day.” It was painted by a friend and a fellow teacher.

For Cat Casey, this is the classroom where she’ll spend her first full year teaching, following her graduation from Belmont Abbey College in December 2018. For years, it’s been her goal to help expose kids to more opportunities in life.

“I may not be able to take this class to another country or to Charlotte to show them a different side of North Carolina, but I can show them through experiences, tell them through experiences, through pictures, and music, and art, and all of those things where they can see that the starting point isn’t the ending point,” said Casey, on Thursday morning, just four days before school begins.

She was born in Virginia, and her father’s job as a school administrator moved the family from there to North Carolina, Indiana, Colorado, back to Indiana and finally Fort Mill, South Carolina, where she spent most of her middle and high school years.

The family’s dedication to faith also took them all over the world on mission trips. For four summers in high school, Casey taught English in the Dominican Republic.

“My parents saw those moves and those changes as an opportunity and so that’s how we always kind of saw it, as opportunities to meet new people, see new places and make more connections,” Casey said. “Some of the biggest lessons I’ve learned through all that change was change is a good thing. It can be hard and difficult, but it’s a positive thing if I make the most of it.”

It was during a mission trip to Honduras as a teenager in 2010 when she truly saw her calling to become a teacher. There, she worked at a boys’ school and orphanage, an endeavor which she wanted to continue in some capacity as a teacher.

While in Honduras, she also played a lot of soccer with the kids, a sport she had played since childhood.

Casey’s plan was to graduate college and then go teach overseas. She would minor in Spanish to help with that effort.

She first attended Montreat College in Asheville for a year and then transferred to Belmont Abbey College, where she’d take summer courses to graduate a semester early. She also played soccer at Belmont Abbey.

But the road to graduation wasn’t easy. Finances were a challenge, and at one point, Casey worked four jobs on campus to pay the bills — from scrubbing toilets to helping out in the athletics department.

As she did growing up, her living arrangement constantly changed. She lived with friends and host families. For her senior year, she lived with Belmont Mayor Charlie Martin and his wife Dot Martin.

“They’ve been such an inspiration for me but also such a big support,” Casey said. “God’s just placed the right people in my life.”

Casey first landed an interim job at Catawba Heights Elementary, where she finished out the 2018-2019 school year teaching language arts. And that Casey taught this subject is another testament to her enduring will to overcome challenges that began at a young age.

She struggled with reading as a child, dealing with dyslexia, processing and comprehension difficulties. She was homeschooled through fourth grade, and the first week of attending a brick and mortar school wasn’t an easy transition.

“The first couple weeks we had a spelling test and I couldn’t do anything. I was on the verge of tears,” she said.

So she instead stayed back a year, found her bearings and made significant improvement.

At Catawba Heights, she worked with kids who also struggled with reading, and used her own experiences to relate to them.

“For me, it was exciting when it clicked for them,” Casey said. “When I was thinking about this position I was like ‘there are going to be some kids who are struggling with reading and they’re going to feel all alone.’ And that’s an opportunity for me to say ‘you’re not alone, I’ve been through it.’”

And remember the book boat couch? It’s actually a descendant of the original book boats that Casey used in her classroom at Catawba Heights, which were actually plastic tubs that kids could sit inside with a book. Casey even painted blue waves along the exterior bottoms of the tubs.

She’s since decided to put off going overseas and begins her first year at Grier Middle on Monday. Here, she will also coach both the boys’ and girls’ soccer teams. Her own No. 16 Belmont Abbey College soccer jersey hangs in a frame above her desk.

It’s all yet another change in her life, and a new adventure she’s excited to begin with her students.

“My goal is to bring confidence for them in the classroom and consistency,” Casey said.

You can reach Eric Wildstein at 704-869-1828 or Twitter.com/TheGazetteEric.

Never miss a story

Choose the plan that's right for you.
Digital access or digital and print delivery.